At this point in the FGC, I probably don’t have to tell you that the entirety of desk‘s YouTube shtick is finding the most improbable interactions that fighting games have to offer. He’s been doing this successfully since 2008, and in Street Fighter V since the series began — It’s a testament to his skill and creativity that through so many games and after so many years, he still finds ways to surprise the FGC. Case in point: his most recent manipulation of V-Reversals:
Taking full advantage of the additional frames granted by counter-hits, desk has found a host of (orchestrated) ways to create absurd and interesting combos from moves never design to allow any sort of followups. Check out the video above to see all the ways you can use, and break, V-Reversals in SFV!
Pictured above: Yatagarasu‘s new character, Wagui.
Right now, Yatagarasu sits in an odd place in the FGC. An independent PC game made by three former King of Fighters developers in 2008, it managed a successful crowd funding campaign in 2014 and expanded into a full title — Yatagarasu: Attack on Cataclysm — for Steam and Arcades. Through solid game-play aimed purely at the FGC, this indie darling earned word-of-mouth praise and support.
Whatever incredible momentum it had, though, has all but fizzled out anywhere outside of Japan. In the years since Yatagarasu‘s near complete abandonment of its Steam version, the indie fighting game market has boomed and moved far beyond what was possible when Yatagarasu was originally in development. A quick glance through at its own steam community page sees players asking the same question about the game once poised to rule all other indie fighters: “Is it dead?”
One thing you should know about Yatagarasu is that it is heavily influenced by Street Fighter III: Third Strike. What’s the most important thing to learn from 3S’s scene? It will never die.
And the same looks to be true for Yatagarasu, which saw new life in it’s announcement for the Enter the Eastward update teased last year. In the truest Yatagarasu fashion possible, the developers have waited just long enough for this announcement to fade from memory before stopping by 4gamer.net to reveal that the update is still on its way and will be adding three new characters:
Wagui, an eldery butler voiced by Shinobu Matsumoto (VA of Akatsuki in Under Night In Birth: EXe Late[st])
A new male character voiced by Kimoto Hoshiko.
A new female character voice by Yumimi Hanamori.
Frustratingly, there’s still no update as to when any of this will touch down on platforms outside of the JP arcade version, or information on the two newest additions to the cast. Yatagarasu supporters are still waiting for promised netplay updates, and physical rewards from 2014 reached backers only last year — the hardest game of patience you can play in the FGC right now, it seems, is waiting for Yatagarasu news.
Two of Tekken 7‘s most misunderstood properties are its vulnerable back-turned states, and the ability to cross-up grounded opponents. There’s a point where these two situations combine into a single moment in high-level Tekken 7 — the Jump-Over Tech Punish at the end of wall combos.
For an idea of just how powerful this is, check out BoxeR-King’s most recent video on the subject above. With King as the primary example, a single tech punish results in 128 cumulative damage — that’s 75% of your opponent’s lifebar for just one juggle and one impatient wake-up guess.
When G was first revealed in the reflection of Menat’s orb, there was some speculation that he would be related somehow to Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike‘s Q — and only because they both share a single letter name. We now know both men are canonically international phenomenons in their own ways and have eerily similar outfits (well, G’s Story Mode outfit, at least, shares design elements with Q’s main outfit). As Pombear demonstrates, they also share an awful lot in the way of attacks:
Whether they are the same person, members of the same organization, or something else entirely remains to be seen. Of course, “remains to be seen” could be said about most aspects of these intentionally mysterious characters — but we know, if nothing else, that the similarities are far beyond coincidence.
Players have been begging for years for Yatch Club’s Shovel Knight to appear in a Smash Bros. game — and when he showed up as an Assist Trophy, there was a disgruntled contingent flustered at the missed opportunity.
If you’re wondering why Nintendo would pass up on a hot property like Shovel Knight, well…
…they may not have. Looks like Shovel Knight was taken! (Or, at least for the platform genre — it’s not like he doesn’t already show up in every otherfighting game.)
While there is no official release date yet for the Blue Shoveler, the trailer shows that he sticks pretty close to his original platformer appearance — Mobile Gear, War Horn, Propeller Dagger, and more give him a wide variety of projectiles and mobility options unique to his character.
The Shadow Mewtwo match-up must be approached in a fundamentally different way from anything else in Pokkén Tournament DX. Similar in design to Seth from Street Fighter IV, SM2 is a glass cannon with a wide and versatile toolkit — and it’s that glass cannon nature that should be the focus of your gameplan when against him.
No one knows that better than one of America’s strongest SM2 players, BadIntent, whom charitably breaks down SM2’s most common projectile traps, mind games, and realistic options. Regardless of which phase you’re in, if you learn to pick your spots you can out-damage SM2 and even potentially keep up with his absurd meter gain.
The NEO GEO World Tour is an SNK-supported tournament series for The King of Fighters ’98 and The King of Fighters XIV. There was a good chance that you saw part of the NGWT if you tuned in to AnimEvo 2018, as Evo was also apart of the world tour — but just prior to that, the NGWT was on the other side of the world, having a knockout tournament in Hong Kong. Check out the highlights below to see snippets of the high level game-play and insane comebacks —
Hong Kong and Evo were the last major stops before the NGWT’s grand finals on the 25th. Make sure you keep an eye on their Twitch page to see the worlds best KOF players in action!
Every now and then something comes in to the SRK tipline that makes me reel back in my chair. Never, in my lifetime, did I think I’d see a combo video for the PlayStation 1’s Digimon Rumble Arena — nor did I think I’d find it, well, fascinating.
Before PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was just a twinkle in Sony’s eyes, Bandai and Hudson Soft experimented with the idea of a combo-oriented platform fighter in the Digimon universe. When hit in Digimon Rumble Arena, your body flies in the direction it was already traveling. This means juggles either need to be kept simple of consistency’s sake, or the player must prepare to different, more complex juggles for specific situations — such as punishing.
All of this information is documented in ncea‘s comprehensive Digimon Player’s Guide, which gives context to the ideas on display in the above video. Lest you think these combos exist in a vacuum, there’s even a small scene brewing in New Zealand around this odd gem.
One of Tekken 7‘s most creative and dedicated combo makers, STL1119, is back to document the varied ways characters can cash out at the wall. Last week he covered the wall-carry master, Lee Chalon — today, we’re looking into counter-hit heavy Steve Fox.
Steve may lack some of Lee’s juggle distance, but he hits incredibly hard once he gets to the wall. Not only does Steve get great damage on a wide variety of character sizes, he also can end his combos in a odd situations — such as ending in Peakaboo Stance on wakeup, or putting himself in back-turned to force an instant low/throw/hopkick mixup.
After you’ve logged in some time in Tekken 7, you start to understand that learning a single combo just won’t cut it if you want to progress in skill. You’ll find, too often, that relying on the same rehearsed string all the time will cause you to lose positioning, wall cash-outs, and mix-up opportunities.
That was the lesson BemaniAK gave live on his channel recently. In the long run, Tekken is more about combo manipulation than it is memorization — and if this is something you’re having trouble conceptualizing, then the crash course above is an excellent place to start learning.
